{"id":281,"date":"2019-03-02T19:34:50","date_gmt":"2019-03-02T19:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/?p=281"},"modified":"2019-03-02T19:34:55","modified_gmt":"2019-03-02T19:34:55","slug":"alan-wilson-interview-february-19-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/03\/02\/alan-wilson-interview-february-19-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Alan Wilson Interview, February 19, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Alan Wilson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At age 72, Alan Wilson still maintains a schedule that would make a 20-year-old weary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have designed over 150 tracks world wide,\u201d he says, \u201cof which 40 got built, including 7 street tracks. We currently have three more under construction, two of them private.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan may not be a household name among race fans, but he is and has been a driving force for over 40 years in every type of motorsport from midgets to Formula One. His web page www.wilsonmotorsport.com<\/a> has a history of his projects dating back to the 1970\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that long perspective, I asked Alan what he sees as the future of racing worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChina is the world\u2019s largest car market. The Chinese are getting richer, and they have a large domestic auto manufacturing base. They should be the prime future market for auto racing. We have been in China since 2000, and I have come up with what I call \u2018The China Conundrum,\u2019 which is basically that they don\u2019t know what they don\u2019t know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI recently bought a ticket to the F-1 Chinese Grand Prix, the first ticket I\u2019ve bought in over 40 years, just to see what the experience was like. I was careful to get a seat near a big screen so I could see the cars on TV, and near a speaker so I could hear the announcer. They had a good crowd of over 100,000 spectators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cF-1 is what I call \u2018fly away racing\u2019 as built by Bernie Ecclestone. You couldn\u2019t get near the paddock, so forget about meeting the drivers. They weren\u2019t introduced before the race, and the numbers on the cars were so small you couldn\u2019t read them. There was a 2 hour delay between final practice and the race, when the entertainment was a guy on a skate board and a local ping pong match. As soon as the race was over the drivers got into their helicopters and flew away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Chinese have the mechanics of a race down, but they need to realize that racing is in the final analysis ENTERTAINMENT ! They\u2019ll have to get that before they can reach their potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn 2017, I spent 141 days in China designing tracks that would accommodate every type of racing from F-1 to carts. We had all the finances and permits lined up, and 2 under construction when the government pulled the plug and took the land back. Land is the ultimate form of wealth in China, so race tracks and golf courses are frowned upon. Racing, and golf too can keep the entertainment dollars at home, but the conundrum is they don\u2019t know that !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChina has a growing auto manufacturing base, and Geely is one of the smartest manufacturers I\u2019ve ever dealt with. Ford practically gave them Volvo, and Volvo under Geely turned a profit of over a billion dollars last year. Geely also now owns Lotus, and they just bought Volvo trucks. India\u2019s population is getting richer and younger, as opposed to most of the world, which is getting older, and the wealth more concentrated. India is a prime market for racing if they could just over come their bureaucracy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn India, the biggest problem is the bureaucracy. It can take 10 years just to get an excavation permit, plus exorbitant fees along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNeither India or China have a history and culture of racing, and that\u2019s what produces crowds, but also takes time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn Europe and the U.S., which both have a great automotive culture, the greatest threat to racing is the bureaucracy, which is dominated by the environmental lobby. I just received a print out of the F.I.A. rules for this year, and it\u2019s over 6 inches thick! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll of the tracks I\u2019ve done in the U.S. since Miller Motorsports have been private tracks. It\u2019s either a condo situation where a bunch of wealthy guys build a track with garages and service facilities, with food and entertainment for their private pleasure. Or just one guy who wants to build a track to go out and play with his toy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe environmental lobby wants to do away with cows because their farts are causing global warming. But there will always be guys who want steaks, and I see the private track market as a way to assure you can always get a good steak!\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At age 72, Alan Wilson still maintains a schedule that would make a 20-year-old weary. \u201cWe have designed over 150 tracks world wide,\u201d he says, \u201cof which 40 got built, including 7 street tracks. We currently have three more under construction, two of them private.\u201d Alan may not be a household name among race fans, … Continue reading “Alan Wilson Interview, February 19, 2019”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8gW0j-4x","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":283,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions\/283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mustangirs.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}